Whirring
by MsAnimanga
Summary: Set after On My Way - the immediate aftermath of the accident. Rachel receives a frantic phone call.


**I've been writing Faberry fics for a while now, but I haven't felt comfortable enough to post them yet. I started this one almost immediately after On My Way and felt the need to post it. This is the first Faberry fic that I'm actually posting (not counting the Faberrizzles one on tumblr). I would like to continue it, if people are interested.**

The wailing of sirens nears the courthouse, and Rachel is the only one to take notice.

"Rachel? Is she coming or not? We can't just stop this-"

"Do you hear that?" Rachel held her phone firmly in her hand, focusing on the muted sound.

"They go past the courthouse all the time, it's the fastest route to the highway." Burt Hummel replied, eyes narrowing as the girl froze. While they all had wanted a sudden halt to the wedding, her demeanor was troubling.

"Something's wrong." Rachel looked at her phone, the blank screen glaring back at her. Quinn had not replied. "She hasn't texted me back…"

"Told you she wasn't coming." Santana stated, a frown forming as she took in Rachel's hunched shoulders, the confusion in her eyes.

"She said that she wanted to support me, Santana, she was very sincere." Rachel insisted, tapping out another text message.

_Where are you? Are you okay?_

The pressure in her chest built with every passing moment that her phone sat still in her palm.

She hadn't planned for this to happen. None of this was going according to plan, and the others merely watched as her face crumpled into one of disappointment.

Quinn's sudden turn, her support, had been the final push for Rachel. She had almost hoped that the girl would stop her at the last minute – she was afraid, the only reason that she had agreed to go through with this was for a sense of stability.

Finn was her rock – or rather, a rock for her to cling to. She had planned on rejecting his proposal until the NYADA panic set in, and the acceptance had been a hasty decision.

She was hoping for something to pull her out of the wedding, and that something had been Quinn. Until her sudden change of heart, and then she became the force that would help drag Rachel down the aisle.

Now, the floor was falling out beneath her, and she had nothing to grasp to but her phone.

The device vibrated suddenly, the song "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty" echoing through the room.

"Quinn? Thank God, I-"

"Hello? Hello? I don't know what happened, I didn't see her!" An unfamiliar voice shrilled through the phone, confusing the bride-to-be.

"I called the cops, but then I saw her phone, and I thought – I don't know. I picked it up, I didn't know what else to do. It was on the floor, there was glass. Red, her car was red, I should have seen it...but I didn't, I hit her and it was so fast. There's red everywhere, and I just. I'm sorry, she's hurt, oh god, I'm sorry. My mom said to slow down, to be careful, my truck is red, she didn't see me-" The young boy on the phone was rambling into the phone, and Rachel vaguely heard snippets from a new voice in the background.

"Calm down…phone...I'm officer…talking to?" Rachel's phone fell from her hand, the tinny sound of the sirens and voices drifting from the speaker.

"There was an accident." Rachel whispered, the frenzied sounds from the phone still playing through her head. The second voice from the phone was coming up from the floor, and someone stepped forward to pick up the dented device.

"Hello? Yes…I understand. The highway…? Oh god, is she going to be okay?"

Rachel was sprinting toward the door of the courthouse in a flash of white before the group could react, tearing her way through the parking lot in search of her car.

She was twisting the key in the ignition just as the group filed out of the church, yelling for her to stop. They were ignored, however, and she peeled out of the parking lot in a hurry. The sirens were easy to follow, and Rachel found the highway, her wheels screeching to meet her sharp turns.

In a daze, she parked her car on the shoulder, running up to the area of the disaster. The truck had smashed into Quinn's side, the door dented in beyond belief.

Rachel searched for the blonde, her eyes scanning the scene just as a stretcher was lifted into an ambulance.

"Wait! Wait!" She ran toward the ambulance before being stopped by a strong arm, a faceless uniformed officer droning on about something.

Again, she could catch only pieces of what was being said, and she fought to focus on the voice.

"Protocol…leave…scene."

"Please, she's my friend! She's my friend, just please let me sit with her, the ambulance is empty!" She crumpled in his arms as the paramedics tended to Quinn on site.

"Please…she's alone in there. Please." Rachel felt something digging into her legs, but she ignored the pain. Slivers of glass were embedding themselves in her skin, but her eyes were trained on the stretcher a few feet away.

Her thoughts were disjointed.

The tears streaming down her cheeks would make her mascara run. Her dress was dirty.

Her dress. The immaculate white dress would be destroyed. Quinn would raise her brow at the mess.

"Please." Rachel whimpered, the sting in her legs heightening her discomfort. She was bleeding. There was glass everywhere, and there would be blood on her dress.

The irrational snippets of thought filtered through her mind, clouding the parts of her that urged her to stand up, to get out of the shards of glass and twisted metal.

The officer helped her stand, guiding the trembling form toward the ambulance, and a fresh wave up tears sprung forth.

The words _shock_, _legs_, and _blood_ filtered through her ears. She was unaware that they were addressing her, that the paramedics were anticipating a full break-down.

The petite brunette cried out as she spotted Quinn's body, limp on the stretcher in the confined space of the ambulance.

"Oh god, Quinn!" The air left her lungs, a familiar weight pressing down on her chest.

A flutter of eyelashes drew the attention of the EMTs, and they rushed to address Quinn, to ask questions. Rachel caught very little, her head was still swimming and she could only make out weak words before hazel eyes flitted to her own.

"Rach…?" The blonde winced suddenly, a wave of pain contorting her face. Rachel jumped forward, attempting to do something, to touch her if only to console her.

"You can't do that, if anything is broken you could hurt her. If you want to help your friend, you'll have to sit down." The sharp voice made Rachel flinch, and she sat obediently, wringing her wrists.

The sirens were filling Rachel's mind, the light gasps from the blonde accompanying them. It was so loud, so very loud, and she fought to keep the sounds at bay with small palms pressed to her ears.

A few moments later, the vehicle halted, jolting her from her seat. Quinn was being moved, and Rachel leapt to follow.

The stretcher was pulled into the ER, and language that Rachel didn't quite understand was filtering through in her haze.

Quinn's eyes opened for a moment, lolling lazily before landing on the familiar figure once again.

"Quinn, I'm so sorry, I…" Rachel moved to touch the blonde again, and a forceful hand stopped her once again.

"You need to be treated. ER…" The rest of the words fell on deaf ears, as Rachel lurched forward in a vain attempt to follow the stretcher.

"N-no, wait, please…" Her feet moved forward, connecting with the ground clumsily.

"Miss…your abrasions…can't go in there…" The muffled voice was closer, and strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her away.

Quinn was being rolled away, toward large doors that lead to a zone that she clearly would not be let through.

There was no way of knowing if she would return, and that realization finally took its toll on the small brunette. Sobs wracked her frame, and she mustered up what air she had in hopes that the girl would hear her.

"I lied, Quinn! I lied!" Her voice broke as the stretcher disappeared behind the doors, and she fell to the floor, rasping out the words.

"I lied…I lied."


End file.
